Thursday 19 April 2018

Glimpses of Budapest

We travel not to escape life but for life not to escape us.   (Unknown)


Currently we are flying towards Paris, with a female pilot who always seems to get us places early, where we will spend the next few days.  This morning we packed up and headed out to wander the streets of Budapest one more time.  The goal was to reach the river and lunch on the waterfront.  Prior to this though my DH mentioned that he had been looking at the shoes in a shoe store around the corner.  So stop number one was shoes.  There was a sale!  And so many choices!  How is one supposed to choose and limit it to one pair?  Success was mine.  I narrowed it down and became the happy owner of a gorgeous pair of leather shoes.  The price was unbelievable.  And I am pretty sure I should have had more!

Then we were off to the city centre and waterfront.  There was a quick stop for post cards that needed to go in the mail.  I stood on the sidewalk of Budapest and wrote messages.  Then there was a quick  stop for blister packs at the pharmacy for my DH.   We rambled along the streets.  Made a slight detour(got a little lost) but by doing so came upon the Jewish Synagogue which is a sight to behold, walked behind the parliament building, again a phenomenal site, as well as a cathedral.  Wandering sure helps you see interesting places.  However, it did cause a bit of a delay but we were near the cathedral at noon when the bells started to ring out across the city once again.  Nothing sounds quite like it!  

We finally ended up on the banks of the river, admired the many bridges that link the two sides, found a good lunch and then took a cab back to the hotel to wait for our shuttle.  During the cab ride back an older gentleman tried to hail it from the street...but we did not have room for him!  This would not be the last we saw of him, we were heading to our gate at the airport and who should be walking in our direction- yes indeed the same man!  We had a great chat with the cab driver.  He was pretty stoic at the beginning, not saying much and then one of us made a comment about which taxi to get in and the one that was parked was a good one (there is a trick to knowing which cabs are honest ones, and we were in the know thanks to Isabella our pub crawl guide) and he started to laugh.  He gave himself away and the remainder of the ride was filled with lots of conversation.  

My DH and friend PC headed back to the shoe shop but were not successful in getting shoes in their size.  In the meantime I needed to pack my new purchase and it was then I made an interesting discovery.  The sales lady had packed the shoes but they were not the same size!  Since it was literally around the corner I went back, explained what happened and sure enough she had a mismatched pair exactly like it. We laughed at the mistake, did a quick exchange and I was back with the shoes tucked away before the shuttle arrived.  My friend FC said “it was a good thing you looked.” And it definitely was a good thing.  I would have been so disappointed otherwise. I bet you’d like to know the colour and style!!!  I think I will keep you guessing.  Suffice it to say they are a more practical buy in one of my favourite colours.


The shuttle bus arrived and we were off to the airport.  It took about thirty minutes with traffic and looked very different from our arrival in the night.  It was a pleasant drive on a lovely hot day.  It had reached twenty four by noon.  Hopefully the warm weather will continue and decide to follow us all the way home.  So here are a few more pictures from today and a few odds and ends from other days as well that I had not included yet.  And spoiler alert I’m not including a picture of my shoes!



 A close up of one side of the Parliament building

 The front of the Jewish Synagogue

 Another view of it

 Random building but the small stone balconies was eye catching

 Random building, the  door lights caught our attention.  In this case you needed to look up or it would have been missed

 Mural that we happened upon

 Loved this one.  She looks super confident as she struts along!

 The parliament building from a distance

A view over the city with the Danube

 The parliament building

Fisherman's bastion and the Cathedral 

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